


the air we breathe…is such a pretty poison

by ShadowSpires



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Kissing to breathe, Other, because I love me some tropes, could be shippy, could just be...reverence, malevolence reminders, your choice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-27 22:19:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10817910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowSpires/pseuds/ShadowSpires
Summary: Wolffe and Plo, and events coming around again, in broken mirrors.





	the air we breathe…is such a pretty poison

 

The General mask is broken, ripped away from him on an exhale, no reserve, no time to prepare. He’ll suffocate at this rate. 

No.

Not suffocate. He will breathe in the oxygen that Wolffe needs to live, but that will poison his general, blister his lungs, kill him as surely as a blaster bolt. Just _slower_ , more painfully, every moment after an agony until he drowns in his own blood, or Wolffe puts him out of his misery, no longer able to listen to his General’s pain.

They are finally safe after two days on the run from one ambush to another, finally back on the right side of the battle lines, and help is _coming this time._ They know it for _sure_ , not just a desperate hope while every breath they take reduces the oxygen in their escape pod.

He can still hear Cody on the com, shouting for him, telling him they are _on the way, 20 minutes, we’ll be there. Hold on. Wolffe, respond!_

Only, Wolffe cannot.

Wolffe has seconds to make a decision, to try to come up with a solution, before his General has to breathe, before he accepts his death as calmly as he accepts everything. Plo Koon will fight to the end; fight droids, and injustices, and fate itself, but he’s never been a fool, and they lost their packs three ambushes ago; Wolffe’s extra mask them, and Boost’s, and Comet’s, and _there is no repair for this._

The General has already been holding his breath for too long already while they fought off the last of the droids that ripped off his mask. That’s a trick Wolffe can only attribute to the Force and Dorin physiology, but even though the last of the droids are in pieces around them now it’s too late. He can see the gentle regret and resolve building in his General’s frame, around the mouth he’d never before had chance to see before, strange and different. The bare lines of his face are twisted in ways Wolffe’s never been given the chance to learn to read, and wished desperately now to never have seen.

There is only one chance.

Engineered to get the most out of every breath, clones absorb all but trace amounts of the oxygen they breathe. It would have meant a rapid death after the Malevolence attacked them, left them stranded, would have meant they sucked every trace of the oxygen out of the pod and rendered it safe for their General with their dying breaths.

The pure oxygen is what’s poisonous to the Dorin, the CO2 and nitrogen and the rest of this planet’s composition aren’t terrible for him. It’s just the _oxygen_.

There, it would have been a quick death. Here, it’s a _chance_.

Wolffe takes a deep breath and lunges forward to seal his lips to his general’s mouth, to breathe for him, stripping the oxygen with his own inhale, exhaling _safety_ for Plo to breath from Wolffe’s own lungs.

It’s nothing like kissing a brother, is his first thought, which is ridiculous. This isn’t a kiss, this is a life saving maneuver. It’s no more intimate than hauling a brother out of the line of fire.

It feels like a _communion_.


End file.
